The Food Post

I have many roles in our house. Many. My husband works really hard with lots of long hours and he helps out a lot, but it is primarily my job to run the house.

I'm really bad at it.

I always have piles of washing. Huge, tangled, overflowing baskets of clean washing. I wash constantly and fold a lot. But I'm a little lazy when it comes to putting it away. I have good intentions. I fold it all up and sort it into each persons little pile. Then I get a little distracted. I forget that I need to watch a little bit of Ellen, or that I'm halfway through an episode of Shameless. I jump on Facebook for "5 minutes" and then find myself, 2 hours later, deep in the comments section of a post from someone I don't even know. So come bed time, the piles are relegated from my bed to the floor at the end of my bed, all ready to be refolded and sorted the next day.

The job I really struggle with is food management. I can never seem to get my shit together when it comes to the weekly shopping. I'm a regular at our local woollies, as in I'm there EVERY DAY. Sometimes TWICE a day. 'Write lists!' I hear you cry! 'Meal plan woman!' yeah yeah I know, but I just can't do it.

I did manage to meal plan once. I shopped online. Click and collect. Bragged to Sharon at woollies that I wouldn't be in all week as I was organised. I could see the doubt in her eyes and the smirk on her lips. I could almost hear the 'you'll be in tomorrow' that she was wordlessly communicating. I was determined not to, if we ran out of food, then they would have to eat dust. And god knows we have dust in abundance. My problem with meal planning, and I know I'm not alone here (Kylie I'm looking at you) is that when you meal plan, the kids are aware of what they are not going to eat each day. They start whinging earlier than necessary, and I cannot stand it.

So I always find myself cooking the same old crap, week in, week out. Normally with mince. It's cheap. It's versatile, and it's the least complained about meat. That's important. I actually love cooking, everything about it - bar the cleaning up - but that's a blog post for another day. I enjoy cooking from scratch, no packet mixes here, but when the fruit of your loins, glances down at her plate and declares 'this looks like diarrhoea' it kills my buzz. They aren't particularly fussy kids, they eat pretty well, but if I try and get creative or add something different to their meal, I am met with suspicion. You would think I had served them offal or the family dog.

It's also hard to plan a week of meals when they do the old 'change your mind trick'. You know the one when you make something, they love it, rave about it, say 'can we have this EVERY night'. You beam with pride like the mum from The Castle, and mentally add the dish to your repertoire, only to serve it up the next week and be met with sighs and crinkled noses.

So please friends. I'm begging. Help a sister out. Give me your best tips for managing your food/budget/family reactions. Tell me how to stop spending 100s of unavoidable dollars on crap I don't need. Speak to me like a novice, a newbie. I need it.

Claire x

P.S - something incredible happened in our community today. A little boy was having a birthday party. His poor mum shared on a page that none of his friends were going to come. Another caring mum decided to share the story to one of our community pages. This started the most amazing movement which led to people, total strangers, but bonded by empathy to get down to that party, to help that gorgeous little boy celebrate. Sometimes small towns like ours get a bad rap. There can be bickering and fighting, bad mouthing and bitching - but today there was love, compassion, and generosity. It is heart warming and faith restoring.